Notes: I've always known how this fic was going to end. There was no way Heero would leave Duo alone for five years without contacting him, somehow. I thought it was time to finally post it. Thank you to Kim and Tina both for their betas.
Warnings: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. References to past drug and alcohol abuse, as well as very, very bad coping methods. Allusions to sex.
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing
Duo's weight was like ash in his arms. Trowa cradled the pilot against his chest, looking down at years of alcohol abuse. At a man who had waited for a lover who could never come home. Duo stirred, struggling, hands still tight around a faded tanktop and Trowa bent just enough to press his cheek against the soggy mess of Duo's sweaty braid.
"Shh, Duo," he soothed, and Duo quieted, turning his flushed, fevered face in to Trowa's shirt and sighing. Trowa turned and left, leaving behind an apartment with no heat or lights, with windows that rattled like Duo's breath. He slammed the door like the lid of a coffin, tucking Duo in to the curve of his passenger seat with hands used to holding guns, or knives. Hands used to holding back.
The fever ravaged Duo. Trowa listened, sitting next to his bed and bathing him with cool water and the scent of a friend who'd left him out of jealousy. Duo's fever was breaking, and he was rose on trembling arms to look around, eyes bloodshot. Licking chapped lips, he stared at Trowa. It was like seeing someone look at a ghost, and Trowa wondered how many other ghosts had visited Duo over the years, when he'd been drunk, or high, or pinned to the wall of a bathroom to let himself forget. If Duo could feel Heero's mouth on his skin after five years.
"Tro?" It was a croak. Reaching out, Trowa cupped the memory of a full cheek, stroking Duo's skin and shaking his head. He wanted to talk about something else, wanted to avoid the questions that whispered like leaves in Duo's parched throat. He swallowed, looking away as Duo fisted one hand in to his shirt, gripping it tight and tugging. He didn't hesitate. Trowa slid in to the bed and Duo slid in to his arms, an old habit from war. From before Heero's mouth had found Duo's one night on a mission, and Trowa kept his silence and let Duo go.
He made it three weeks. Three weeks of temper tantrums, reminders that Duo had been a stealth expert and an escape artist. Trowa remembered the war with fondness, staring in to blazing violet eyes. His own eyes stared back from his reflection with bruises, weary under the dim yellow light. He bought paper plates, tired of replacing the glass ones, and ordered takeout when he could. But they still slid back in to the same bed at night, and Trowa let Duo's head tuck under his chin. He didn't ask and Trowa didn't tell him. Didn't mention why after two years he'd shown up and carried Duo off the altar he'd made to Shinigami.
And then Duo came to him with Heero's shirt in his hand, the fabric worn, color faded. Trowa stared at it, mouth dry.
"Duo—" he started.
"No. Tell me, Trowa. Why did you save me?" Trowa wanted accusations. He wanted anger, fury, and anything but the thin desperation coating Duo's tongue like vomit. Sliding his arm around Duo's waist, he pulled him down and against him, stroking back a lock of hair. Trowa swallowed, throat hot and bitter.
"I—we found Heero..." It was the wrong thing to say. Trowa knew it immediately, as soon as he saw hope and the warm flicker of joy in those eyes, those beautiful violet eyes he'd spent the war memorizing only to lose to a shadow. To a man that had loved Duo better and left.
"Where? Can I see him?" Duo was sitting up, smiling. Reaching out, Trowa touched the lines of his face. The winkles at his eyes, the corners of his mouth. Trowa had made that smile, once, until Heero had left Duo to find himself and never come home. Duo's smiles had disappeared like flowers then, wilting in the harsh heat of Heero's absence. On his lap, Duo was watching him, face slowly paling as he listened to his friend's silence.
"We found a—ship. It was on a rock near L1. There was...there was a body. Duo," he said it softly, quietly, hand threading in the base of Duo's braid, palming the base of his skull and holding it like a detonator.
"How—When?," Duo was staring through him. His face was calm, blank as a bank of snow. Trowa tightened his grip, thumb stroking the spot behind his ear and hating himself for insisting that he be the one to tell him. To shatter the dream Duo had woven out of liquor and narcotics and the lingering scent on a ratty old tee shirt that should've been destroyed, before. Before the war was even over, before Heero had left, after promising Duo, after promising Trowa, that he would take care of his lover.
"When he was on his way to L1," Trowa jumped, looking down in surprise. Duo's shoulders were shaking, his eyes shut, his hand covering his mouth. He rocked and shook and laughed, head surging forward to rest on his knees as the sound bubbled up. It was manic, an echo of the Shinigami Trowa knew from the war. Gripping Duo's shoulders, Trowa turned him and pulled him tight against his chest.
Duo howled and laughed, eyes unfocused and glazed. They were vacant, when Trowa looked, and he did the first thing he could think of, slapping Duo across the face. It worked. Duo's hand went to the red print of Trowa's hand and he looked at Trowa with eyes that were lived in, with a face that had Duo's name on it. And then he crumpled, sobbing in to Trowa's shirt and covering him with snot and tears and the knowledge that he'd spent five years waiting for a man who was dead. Who had always been dead.
They didn't have a funeral.
After that, Duo went silent. He moved through Trowa's apartment at night and slept during the day, avoiding the windows. Trowa watched him around corners and through mirrors, catching glimpses when he could and letting Heero's death seep in to Duo while the drugs seeped out. Some nights he caught Duo at the window, staring in to the sky and crying silently, tears silver tracks in his skin, and Trowa would watch and let him cry, his own sorrow held back under the knowledge that neither of them had been his.
One night it rained, the moon shielded from Duo's grief by clouds thick and dark. Standing at the window, the braided man clutched his arms and bowed his head, crying softly with his head against the glass. Five years of falling apart, of waiting and waiting and hoping and finally, giving up. Of believing Heero would never come home, had never wanted him. Of finally believing that Heero had lied.
Trowa watched, heard the murmured name from his place at the doorway, breaking a month of silence with two arms wrapping firmly around Duo's waist. He held his breath as Duo stiffened, then turned, pressing his face to his shirt and shuddering. Duo's hair was down, hanging past the small of his back and rippling in the lack of light. Running one hand through it, Trowa kissed the top of his head and inhaled. It was the same scent, the same hope that sprang up, etched in to Trowa's heart during the war, and he rested his cheek against Duo's hair.
"He loved you. He would've come back," Trowa whispered it, his voice unsteady with years of wanting someone he'd agreed to give to someone else. Duo choked, and the mercenary knew he'd said the right thing. The tears staining his shirt seemed cleaner, less bitter, and Trowa reached out, cupping Duo's chin and tilting his face up. He stroked Duo's jaw with his thumb.
"Heero didn't leave you, Duo. And I neither will I," Trowa leaned in, pressing his lips to Duo's, fingers skimming his jaw gently. He left Duo at the window to stare at him, eyes wide, fingers pressed to his lips. Duo could feel the promise against his skin, could feel the lingering warmth of Trowa's lips on his.
Trowa kept track of every small victory with a loosening of the tension in his shoulders. Duo went back to school, started talking to Quatre and Hilde again. He got a part time job on campus and got home before Trowa, cooking dinner for both of them, the apartment full of the scent of spices and books. Trowa didn't mention the kiss, but he let his hands linger on Duo's shoulder. Or on his waist, while Duo was cooking, leaning in to taste whatever was in the spoon being held out for him. He put Duo to bed when he fell asleep studying.
It took almost a year. One night, Trowa lifted him and cradled him close, cheek against his hair as he walked slowly. He set the body in his arms in the bed slowly, fingers clinging to the skin like raindrops on glass. When Trowa reached to brush back the thick fringe of bangs, he found violet eyes watching him. They were open and wide and Duo's hands slid in to his hair, tugging him down and arching up to kiss him. Trowa kept his eyes open, watching as Duo's slipped shut. Duo's mouth was hot and sweet and tasted like fruit, from dessert. They kissed slowly, Trowa's hands cupping newly rounded cheeks, thumbs ghosting over cheekbones.
When they parted, Duo said his name, and Trowa smiled, kissing the inside of his wrist. He felt shy, and looked shy, and Duo pulled him in to bed and pressed against him, hands working under his shirt. They were eager and slow, Trowa's hands sliding over Duo's skin like sunlight, mouths and hips meeting and pressing close. The braided pilot closed his eyes, leaning in to the touch and moaning a new name, Trowa's mouth hot and demanding around his flesh. After, they slept in a tangle of sticky limbs and loose hair, Duo's hands tight in Trowa's shirt.
Later, Trowa woke alone. He padded on mercenary's feet to the living room, watching Duo lean against the window, feeling Heero in the air and smelling the scent of explosions. Duo spoke softly, hand against the glass, telling secrets to a ghost. Trowa felt hollow, watching and wondering if Heero would live between them like a veil. Wondering if Duo wanted to follow, praying that he wouldn't. Duo cleared his throat.
"I love you. I'm...I still miss you. Shit, 'Ro. It's been five years. I wish...you know what I wish. But I have Tro, now. And I love him, too. And he's here, not dead. I think...I think I can let you go," there was a wistful quality to Duo's voice more dangerous than Zero, the possibility of second beam canon to blast him back out to space and silence and a life without. Trowa made it back to bed by memory, eyes shut, heart hammering hard in his chest. He waited and trembled. It wasn't what he wanted. He wanted his first love to come to him, to admit that it had always been Trowa. But when Duo climbed in to bed and wrapped both arms around him, settling his head under his chin, Trowa thought that it was enough, for now.